Continuing professional education: Opportunity and participation structures

This contribution starts out from the assumption that participation in continuing professional education is realized in the context of different opportunity structures and an analysis of participation selectivity must take account of both self-selection and external selection processes. The different opportunity structures are described using approaches from segmentation and economic theory, which lead to the identification of three segments of continuing professional education. Participation structures in the three training segments are shown using logistic regressions, which take account of socio-demographic and individual characteristics of the social and employment environment. These predictors display segment-specific influences, which emphasizes the importance of differentiated perspectives on continuing professional education. Overall, participation is shown to be clearly influenced by external selection processes. The basis of the analyses is data from the German National Educational Panel Study (NEPS), cohort 2009/10.